The girl in the snoopy pyjamas

I can’t get her out of my mind

Two legs in pink pyjama pants. Two feet. Ten toes.

This, the image that undid me.

It’s quite ironic isn’t it. The thing that breaks you. It’s never really what you thought it would be. It’s just simply the culmination of all that has come before it.

Yes, the backdrop to these legs was four women up against a wall. Bloodied faces. Cuts, bruises. Terror in their eyes. All in a semi undressed state. All raised from their beds. All in their sleeping clothes. It was, after all, early on a Saturday morning.

But I couldn’t stop looking at the pink pyjamas. Snoopy pyjamas. Snoopy pyjamas!

Just before I saw this image, I saw another video clip, 22 of them huddled together in a bomb shelter. Petrified. Madly dialling family on their mobile phones.

Fifteen of those girls were raped and murdered.

Seven of them were ultimately taken hostage by Hamas (world recognised terrorist organisation). Five of them are still in captivity, their exact whereabouts, nor whether they are even still alive, unknown to us, nearly eight months later.

Some of you may have heard about this video, perhaps even seen it on social media or the news. I’m not going to force you to watch it. I encourage it but I won’t force it as it’s really just playing into the perpetrators hands. They want you to see it, they want you to marvel over what they’ve done. They’re pleased with their efforts. No, not just pleased, elated.

The thing is they were young teenagers who still wore snoopy pyjamas. Yes, they were on a military base because if you know anything of Israel’s defence forces, it’s compulsory service for the majority of the population. Compulsory not because Israelis are blood-thirsty genociders, as some in the world would hope you’d believe, but because Israel has lived under threat for her entire existence as a state. Compulsory for this exact moment in time when she has to defend her life.

They weren’t in combat. They weren’t armed. They weren’t killed in a ground battle or air fight. They were just at a base. Watching computer screens.

They were targeted specifically as women. As young women. As young ‘rape-able’ women as their attackers were heard saying on recordings.

They wore snoopy pyjamas.

Those same pyjamas later seen stained, as the girl whose legs they graced limped to a Jeep waiting to kidnap her to Gaza. No prizes for why she could barely walk or why the stains were dirty red.

No, they aren’t the only women raped in wars or attacks. It’s happened for millenia. It happens all the time in tribal battles. It’s probably happened in every war. The difference here is two-fold. Firstly, normally, we neither see footage or hear about it. In this case we’ve had both: photos/videos and words written in a number of articles. These images have been plastered all over social media for months now. And the second layer of this, which is the most disturbing, they’ve been basically ignored by women all around the world. Women who normally raise their voices at basic issues of consent let alone actual sexual assault crimes of this barbaric nature.

Seeing the snoopy pyjamas undid me because I no longer think I can look the same way at any woman who has ignored this. You don’t need to know the history of a complex situation in the Middle East to condemn rape. You don’t need to know anything about war plans or prime ministers to condemn rape. You don’t need to know much to know that a woman in snoopy pyjamas should not be raped or taken captive and not heard from or seen since 7 October.

And, you can still be concerned about the lives of civilians in Gaza and condemn rape.

There are no excuses.

What also undid me was the notion that to the naysayers or even those preferring to ignore this, whatever I say won’t matter now. It doesn’t matter that she is wearing pink pyjamas. Most are in too deep already.

I know things now that I didn’t know eight months ago, or that I chose not to want to know.

There are those out there who are so stuck on narratives that nuance isn’t even an option to them. They are so fixated on words such as colonialism, apartheid, genocide, resistance, oppressor/oppressed that they don’t even know what they really mean. It’s a tunnel vision that is having so called social justice warriors on-side with terrorist regimes.

There are also those who hate so much that their hate overrides everything. Even a Jewish person being raped is justified through their hate.

And there are others, my grandparents called them the Pols or the Germans in the 30s and 40s who were ok being their friends in good times but not in bad times.

Still there are more, and I’m so very grateful for them. The ones, the few, who have said it isn’t ok.

In the last month, Israel and the Jewish people have celebrated two memorial days. The first Yom Hashoah (which is for the 6 million who perished in the Holocaust) and a day known as the one we have to remember the cost of not having Israel. The second was Yom HaZikaron (which is for the fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks in Israel) and a day known as the one we have to remember the cost of having Israel. It seems like a no win situation doesn’t it.

This morning I asked where to now? Do I continue with my writing on this?

Well, yes I do. I know why I’m a writer. Part of it is to record my story, my people’s story, woman’s story.

As I watched the full moon rise up above the ocean, I sent a few blessings out across the seas. I pray with all my heart that one of them reaches the girl in the pink snoopy pyjamas.

Blessings and love,

Sharon

PS: I just couldn’t put the photo of the snoopy pyjamas up here, so went with the healing rays of the moon instead. But the shots are available on youtube. Just google if you wish.